


Like Safety and Home

by satonawall



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Knitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 21:16:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3952063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satonawall/pseuds/satonawall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brittany joins the Knitting Club. Santana might not have seen it coming, but the results end up being sweet nonetheless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Safety and Home

“Well, you look excited today,” Santana said as she set her laptop down on her bed. “Did Lord Tubbington finally admit that he’s been stealing your socks to build a nest for his long-lost family?”  
  
At least, that was what Brittany had told her she suspected. Santana didn’t think it meant anything more than what it seemed to, and she was usually pretty good at reading Brittany.  
  
“No, I’m still working on that. But I joined a new club!”  
  
“Really? Which one?”  
  
She had always felt all too busy with just cheerleading and Glee, but then again, that was when her third major hobby had been making out with Brittany while their parents were not at home, and that was obviously something Brittany could not do while Santana was in New York.  
  
“Knitting club!” Brittany was practically bouncing with her excitement.

It was Brittany, so Santana’s face didn’t even try to arrange itself into that judging look it was so fond of giving people. “I didn’t know you liked knitting.”  
  
Actually, she was quite sure Brittany had never mentioned anything of the kind at all. She would have remembered.  
  
“I didn’t either,” Brittany said. “But then Blaine said that it made him feel better about Kurt being away and that I should try too, and I think he just said it because it’s Mrs Wakefield’s club and she always smells like cat litter and I think it unnerves him. But it’s actually a really nice club. I really like all the yarns. They’re super soft and sometimes I think they purr when no one’s listening.”  
  
“I’d think you would,” Santana said mildly.  
  
It wouldn’t be there weirdest thing Brittany had ever done, not even close, she thought to herself as Brittany changed the subject and began detailing the dance she was choreographing for Tina’s glee club solo (“It’s going to be a lot like the one we did last year except better because no one’s going to be singing in front of us”). Her girlfriend was adorable and unpredictable, and looking at it from that angle, Santana could see how knitting would be the perfect fit.  
  
But still. It didn’t matter much anyway; it was a high school club, not an unbreakable vow. If she was right to have her suspicions, Brittany would just simply stop going and Blaine would have to face kitten litter by himself or stop being so ridiculously lovesick.  
  
—  
  
November was a busy month for Santana; in addition to picking up extra shifts at the diner to be able to pay for both her plane tickets and Christmas presents (and damn Rachel and Kurt for growing on her to such an extent that she would have to buy them something, too, or else feel like a bad roommate), she also had a ridiculous amount of assignments due.  
  
“Sorry,” she said to Brittany over Skype one evening as she was chewing on her pencil and trying to make Chemistry 101 make any sense. “I know this isn’t exactly the sort of hot date you’re used to.”  
  
“It’s okay.” Brittany beamed at her. “I like watching you work. It makes me feel like I’m working by extension even though I’m actually just stretching.”  
  
“Dietrich from my English Lit class would claim that stretching is the hardest form of exercise,” Santana said as she underlined a sentence from her notes.  
  
“Dietrich from your English Lit class knows nothing,” Brittany said. “Stretching is like breathing, it makes you able to live.”  
  
“Well, he does think that Hemingway is all the rage, so yeah,” Santana looked up to smile at Brittany, “he knows nothing.”  
  
Brittany moved a little, and Santana thought she saw something large and fluffy behind Brittany’s head, but maybe it was just Lord Tubbington.  
  
—  
  
She was not going to cry.  
  
Okay, she was already crying, but she was going to stop right then.  
  
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she said, and on the screen, Brittany tilted her head and watched her like she had nothing to do in the world but listen to Santana complain. “I don’t want to quit my job but I have three assignments due by Monday and I haven’t even had the chance to start on them, and I haven’t been able to properly talk to you for days because I’ve been so busy, and Kurt and Rachel are fighting about soy milk and they’re both mad at me because I told them how ridiculous they are, and-”  
  
She didn’t mean to let the sob escape, but maybe it was good that it interrupted her before she let that sentence go on any longer.  
  
“You’re amazing,” Brittany said as Santana tried to dry her cheek discreetly with her sleeve. “And everything should always go really well for you except when you need a little hardship to remind you how amazing you are. I’m sorry you’re having trouble. And you’ve been texting me all week and I still brag to everyone how my girlfriend is the best girlfriend ever because it’s true.”  
  
“I miss you,” Santana said. “It would all be better if you were here.”  
  
“I will be there.” Brittany put her arms around herself. “And in a few weeks you’ll be here and it’ll be Christmas and I’ll make you laugh by trying to sing along to your mum’s Spanish Christmas CDs again, and you won’t have any assignments to do except me.”  
  
She laughed. It was impossible not to, as long as she had Brittany.  
  
“I’m looking forward to that assignment,” she said. Rachel and Kurt were both at home and sulking quietly, though, so she couldn’t go on any further with that. “Thanks, I feel a lot better. How have you been?”  
  
Brittany smiled, but there was a wistful tint to it. “I miss you too,” she said. “And I’ll be there when this year is over, but it feels like the longest year ever.”  
  
“I know,” Santana said. “But at least you have your friends there. And I bet that Blaine and Tina wouldn’t yell at you even if you accidentally made them eat cookies with regular milk.”  
  
“They wouldn’t,” Brittany said. “But neither would you.”  
  
“A few weeks,” Santana repeated Brittany’s earlier words back at her. “Just a few weeks, and then I’ll be there to eat all the cookies you want.”  
  
—  
  
If she died and went to Hell, it would at least seem familiar, because Hell was exactly where Santana spent her weekend. She worked both days and spent every second of her breaks and commutes and even mealtimes doing schoolwork, and maybe she technically turned the last assignment in two minutes late (but no one would ever know because the teacher wasn’t there on time to stop her) but she did it.  
  
Of course, that would mean she would have maybe a day to rest before she should start revising for her exams (McKinley High really hadn’t prepared her for college; she didn’t mind doing the work, but she would have liked the workload to increase a little more gradually). She got her favourite pasta take-out as a reward, promised herself to not say anything to her roommates, no matter how annoying she’d find them that evening, and came home to Kurt at the stove cooking something that smelt like garlic and pretentiousness.  
  
“You got a parcel,” he said without looking up at her.  
  
Santana would have commented but she could see even from the door that the parcel was wrapped in that cheery snowman wrapping paper Brittany always wrapped all her mail in (“Everyone likes to think it’s Christmas! It always makes me feel better.”) and as much as she loved making snipe-y comments at her roommates, she loved Brittany even more.  
  
The parcel safely in her room away from Kurt’s prying eyes (she wasn’t the only one who loved making those comments), she ripped it open to reveal-  
  
A sea monster, was her first thought. Something between a kraken and a giant squid, and considering that it was Brittany, that was a possibility you couldn’t rule out without consideration.  
  
Once she pulled it out of the box, it became clear that it was a huge blob with six smaller blobs of varying shapes and sizes attached to it. A huge blob made of red yarn knitted into - Santana noted with admiration - quite beautiful patterns and then stitched to be- That.  
  
It must have taken Brittany ages to make, Santana thought as she reached for her laptop.  
  
Brittany was online and answered her call within seconds like she’d known Santana was going to make it.  
  
“I got quite a surprise today,” Santana told her. “Look who came to see me.”  
Maybe it was a kraken with giant squids for appendages (that would be kind of cool, in a way; she’d have to mention it to Artie so he’d be obliged to thank her in any award acceptance speeches he’d have to give if he made a successful sci-fi film out of it one day) but it was a kraken with giant squids for appendages that Brittany had made her, and that alone was enough to turn Santana’s insides a little fuzzy.  
  
“Isn’t she cute?” Brittany asked. “I think her name is Madame Schrödinger. Doesn’t she look like a Schrödinger?”  
  
‘She’ looked like a ten-year-old’s failed attempt at a princess dress, but Santana wasn’t about to say that.  
  
“It sounds kind of like royalty,” she said. “German royalty. I’m going to have to keep her under wraps or Kurt will start getting ideas of being related and being a secret prince and god knows he already acts the part way too much.”  
  
“I always thought Kurt was related to cats,” Brittany said. “I asked Lord Tubbington once if he could check with his secret cat signals, but that was the week he got the laser and he was too busy doing surgical procedures on the squirrels to care about finding lost family.”  
  
“She’s a very pretty cat,” Santana said.  
  
The legs still looked like giant squids, she thought to herself. Brittany didn’t need to hear that, though. It was very sweet nonetheless.  
  
“Thank you,” she said, turning to Brittany. “It must have taken you ages to finish her, she’s- I love you so much.”  
  
“I love you too,” Brittany said. “And Madame Schrödinger sat on my lap a lot while I was making her, so she’s full of sweet lap sitting vibes and my cuddles. I’m sure she’d love to share because you need that a lot more than she does.”  
  
Santana laughed and gingerly petted at the cat, irrationally feeling like it might nib at her fingers if she wasn’t careful. It wasn’t a sea monster, she reminded herself, and anyway, it was made of yarn and couldn’t open its mouth because its mouth was an embroidered line made with thick black woollen yarn.  
  
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “And I’ll cuddle you extra much when I come to Ohio for Christmas.”  
  
Brittany beamed at her. “I will cuddle you too.”  
  
After that, Brittany had to go to pick her sister up from her debate club meeting, and Santana reluctantly waved her goodbye. After she’d closed her laptop, though, she carefully picked the monster off the bed and, holding it between her thumb and forefinger, carried it over to the small vanity in the corner and dumped it there.  
  
“You stay here,” she said and wagged her finger at it. “And if you move, I will know, and I will start cutting off those squids, are we clear?”  
  
“Oh my god are you talking to yourself?” Kurt said from too close to her door for comfort, and Santana marched out of her room to pick up the fight he so clearly was angling for. She was nothing if not obliging.  
  
—  
  
She went to bed sleepy - mutually insulting Kurt was exhausting, and her free day with pasta had turned into an impromptu revision session with pasta - but as soon as she closed her eyes and laid down quietly, it felt like her mind just refreshed itself and suddenly she was far too awake to fall asleep.  
  
Santana opened her eyes again, looked around in her room for something to blame that on and groaned. The bed was exactly as it had always been, but maybe it was that hearing from Brittany had made her lonelier than usual. Or something.  
  
Her gaze fell on the yarn beast and she shook her head. No, she wouldn’t do that. She’d keep it there to remind her that her girlfriend was awesome, but that was it.  
  
Ten minutes later, the bed feeling exactly as empty as it had earlier, Santana groaned again, from even worse frustration this time, got up and fetched the beast from its corner.  
  
“You’re telling no one,” she said as she returned to bed and cuddled around it, burying her head against the soft, woollen underbelly. “Except Brittany. She’d be happy to know about this.”  
  
The monster didn’t respond, which was all well and good because Santana was asleep within minutes and her defences were terrifyingly low; it would have been able to do whatever it wanted to her if it had somehow suddenly become sentient.  
  
—  
  
The following day, on her way home, she popped in to the local overpriced bakery to pick up three slices of their ridiculous three chocolates cheesecake that Kurt loved a lot.  
  
He perked up when she set the paper bag in front of him, peeked in and squealed before looking up and giving Santana a very suspicious look.  
  
“Why are you showing me these?”  
  
“They’re a bribe,” Santana said. “Or call it a peace offering. You can fight with Berry all you want about soy milk and her new boyfriend and whatever you’d like, but I want a truce. For some time, at least.”  
  
Kurt pulled the bag towards himself, shielding it with his body like he was afraid Santana would try to snatch it away. “What more do you want? This is very unlike you.”  
  
Santana took a deep breath. The worst Kurt could do was to judge her, and two could play that game.  
  
“I need you to teach me how to knit.”  
  
—  
  
“Awwwww,” Brittany said as she pulled the legwarmers out of the large envelope Santana had sent her. “They match Madame Schrödinger’s fur.”  
  
Santana shot a glare at the furry beast while Brittany wasn’t looking. She had been tempted to actually make Madame Schrödinger into legwarmers, but then she would have been left with no one to cuddle and to remind her of Brittany for the rest of the year. She’d found similar yarn when she’d made Kurt show her his knitting secrets, though, and that had been an acceptable compromise.  
  
“I hope you like them,” she said. “Kurt wasn’t a very good teacher, so they’re not very good-“  
  
“I heard that!” came an indignant shout from the next room.  
  
“Okay.” Santana toned down her voice. “And I wasn’t a very good student either. It was a group effort of suck.”  
  
“They’re my favourites,” Brittany said. “And they’re really warm.”  
  
If she’d been a sap like her roommates, Santana would have said that both they and Madame Schrödinger were made with love that kept them warm, but she didn’t.  
  
She thought it, though. And as Brittany smiled at her, Santana couldn’t help thinking that Brittany had always been able to read her mind better than anyone else.


End file.
